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Why is anyone that questions the social norm considered batshit crazy? I've never understood this. I imagine the first guy that said the earth was round was called batshit crazy also. Before any of you crybabies tries to tear me apart just think about anyone who has gone against the grain and was proven to be right.

While you're at it, also think about the people who went against the grain and were proven wrong. Its a lot, lot, lot longer list. And there are other metrics to judge someone's degree of "batshit-craziness" by besides whether or not they go against the grain. Like, for instance, whether what they are saying has any backing evidence, whether or not it is even remotely logically consistent, whether or not they commit countless logical fallacies on a consistent basis in an effort to back up their delusions, whether or not they hallucinate regularly, and the list goes on.

But going against the grain shouldn't warrant a batshit crazy title on every occasion. I hear this anytime someone has a conflicting argument against the popular norm. It's immediately followed with conspiracy theorist on almost every occasion.

Your saying there's no evidence whatsoever and that's simply not true. You're using the word "logic" as a degrading word if anyone disagrees with you. You're saying anyone that disagrees is a moron. You're so black and white on this subject and it makes you ignore anything anyone has to say and it's not fair to anyone debating you on this.

The difference, which was the real point I was attempting to make in my original comment, is in how evidence is dealt with. Most of the popular conspiracy theories are on shaky ground at best in terms of how well they explain the evidence. Fanatics of them tend to ignore any evidence that doesn't fit their belief. If it's too big to ignore, they attack its credibility, or the credibility of the source of the evidence. If it's a clearly reputable source, the next logical leap is that the source is part of the conspiracy, or has been forced to lie about it (through bribery or coercion) by the conspiracy. This methodology allows them to toss out whatever evidence contradicts them. It's how you get the Loose Change guys reading a statement from a university professor with a doctorate in engineering and published work on the topic explaining how the WTC collapse occured, and some freshmen film student saying "But that can't have happened! Use your common sense!". If anyone, conspiracy theorists and scientists alike, are willing to ignore evidence and ignore expert testimony because it doesn't fit their model, then they should not be taken seriously. They walk into the problem with something in mind, then collect only evidence that supports it, and arrange that evidence to be as convincing as possible. They don't walk into the problem with an open mind, planning to review all of the evidence and figure out exactly what happened.

You say it's how the evidence is dealt with. This is what I'm talking about, a police officer with nothing to gain says he has a proof he saw a UFO. The man has pictures and a video that no one can explain. What happens next? He's called crazy and ridiculed in the community. You look at people like Bob Lazar, with nothing to gain and everything to lose. He has all the evidence a person would need to prove that he reverse engineered a recovered UFO. What happens to him? He loses his job, he's threatened, and discredited in the community. This happens all the time. You can't toss out these accounts because they don't fit into your agenda, but it happens because they're considered conspiracy theorists and obviously crazy.

But, do you think these people that study in these fields are crazy? I would venture to guess that most people that have anything to do with SETI believe in extra terrestrial life. I was also believe that people that work in and around ESP or remote viewing believe it's real. Do you think these people are crazy?

I'm not even going to get into the argument you're having because it's silly, but I have to correct you on one thing. Belief in extra-terrestrial life, among the scientific community, is pretty much the social norm. While there hasn't been any evidence of it yet, the statistical probability that we're the only intelligent living things in the universe is just so astronomically bad that it's almost silly to even think that. The thing that's not the social norm is people believing that we've been visited by other extra-terrestrial beings. There's no evidence of it, and it's very very very very statistically unlikely to have happened.

So, I'm gonna end this "debate" because it seems that you think its the norm to believe in aliens but not the norm to think UFO's have been here. I think if you believe Dan is crazy, you're on the same boat as he is. For the record I believe in aliens and I believe they have visited earth in some way or another and I don't consider any of us crazy. But since I believe in both things I guess I wouldn't know if I were crazy or not, since I'm crazy myself.

I don't have irrefutable evidence, but I'd like to think that 100,000's of eyewitness reports, some very credible sources, have some weight in the argument. Some of these sightings have multiple witnesses. You can't throw out every case as nutjobs, weather balloons, or swamp gas. Eventually we have to start looking at this evidence as something happening around the world.
There are a few acceptable theories that don't have irrefutable evidence to back them up, but that doesn't mean they don't hold water. Christians have a book and some historical eyewitnesses that say Jesus was the son of god. On the other side Atheists have found quite a bit of evidence to prove evolution is how we became humans.
My point is, you don't always have to have irrefutable evidence to have belief in something.